Citation

Joffe AR. Rev. Neurosci. 2009; 20(3-4): 187-198.

Affiliation

University of Alberta, and Stollery Children's Hospital, Edmonton, AB, Canada. ajoffe@cha.ab.ca

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, Freund Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

20157989

Abstract

This paper suggests that there are insurmountable problems for brain death as a criterion of death. The following are argued: (1) brain death does not meet an accepted concept of death, and is not the loss of integration of the organism as a whole; (2) brain death does not meet the criterion of brain death itself; brain death is not the irreversible loss of all critical functions of the entire brain; and (3) brain death may, however rarely, be reversible. I conclude that brain death, while a devastating neurological state with a dismal prognosis, is not death.

Language: en